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The IMporTance of earTh ScIenceS educaTIon Are we learning enough about our Earth and its processes? by dr afroz ahmad shah he necessity to understand and update our knowledge about geological processes is increasing in the modern times as we move further ahead because it involves the Earth and its various processes, which directly or indirectly affect for global sustainability and hazard mitigation will have to be countered with new and innovative ways of technology and research. natural disasters, an increase in the demand for various resources, the scarcity of raw materials and energy requirements for the rapidly increasing population, particularly in the developing world, will require the earth scientists to shoulder major responsibilities. Earth scientists understand the Earth processes better and therefore, can immensely help the rest of the people to understand this planet and to implement the
Illustration by Charis Loke
planet and to discover new ways to make it healthier and sustainable. However, such goals can only be achieved provided we understand the need for focused and applied earth sciences. Historically speaking, through most of the past century, Earth Sciences largely served as a tool for exploitation of natural resources. It is true that industrial output increased by 13-fold whereas energy use expanded 16 times with an increase in the water consumption by a factor of seven1
such a balance will be hard. Science in general and earth sciences in particular will play a key role in the accomplishment of this complicated objective. In the past, the realisation to have a sustainable and healthy Earth was grossly overlooked by the greedy anthropogenic exploitation of resources. However, this was changed during the 1980s when was realised that the role of geosciences to promote and propagate the knowledge of the Earth and S C I E N T I F I C M A L AY S I A N
